Ye Chu frowned at the thermos in Xiao Xiao's hands. "Um... I think there's something wrong with that thermos."
Even though my luck has always been terrible, I still trust my instincts.
Xiao Xiao looked serious too. "Ye Chu, can we skip this ritual?"
Ye Chu hadn't expected Xiao Xiao to have the same idea. He paused. "Why?"
"I faint at the sight of blood. It's really bad-I pass out the moment I see any."
Ye Chu: ...
Their reasoning was different, but at least they'd reached the same conclusion. Ye Chu nodded earnestly. "Then we won't do the ritual."
Since they weren't going to perform the ritual, the safe room was no use to them anymore. Ye Chu pressed his hand onto the door handle, intending to leave.
"Huh?" Ye Chu pushed hard against the door, but it wouldn't budge.
"Look here." Xiao Xiao pointed at the sheet of rules. "There are two more rules!"
[7. You must complete the ritual. 8. You must complete the ritual!!!]
The two rules were identical, except that the second had a few extra exclamation marks. Ye Chu thought to himself, It's getting desperate.
"It's getting desperate! It's getting desperate! Hahahaha!" Pei Yanchuan sat on a chair, laughing gleefully. "Didn't see that coming, did you? We've got cheats! Nyah, nyah, nyah!"
Su Fengzi watched the kid laughing happily in the chair and pressed a hand to his forehead in resignation. He really was still a child.
"Since these rules don't do us any good, let's leave." Su Fengzi tried to push the door open as he spoke. "Huh? It won't open?"
Pei Yanchuan jumped down from the chair and tried pushing the door too. It really wouldn't open. "...You're a sore loser, aren't you?"
Apparently, completing the ritual was very important to this thing. It was probably the monster controlling the entire school.
Why was it controlling the school? What did it stand to gain? What did it want from the school? Why did some rules benefit the students, while others pushed them into the abyss? A flood of questions sprang into his mind.
But judging by what they'd seen so far, this monster wasn't very smart...
"This monster's kind of childish," Pei Yanchuan remarked.
Su Fengzi raised an eyebrow without comment. "So what do we do now?"
Completing the ritual with blood was definitely out of the question. Something seemed to occur to Pei Yanchuan, and his lips curved into a smile. "Brother Fengzi, do you have any poison left?"
"Ye Chu, what's that?" Xiao Xiao looked curiously at the purple vial in Ye Chu's hand.
"Poison," Ye Chu answered honestly.
Xiao Xiao's eyes widened. "Poison?!"
"Yes." Ye Chu poured the poison into the thermos, screwed the lid on, and put it in the cabinet, silently counting down. Three, two, one.
The room suddenly shook violently, and a piercing shriek rang in their ears. Xiao Xiao covered her ears and felt someone tugging her forward. After a dozen or so steps, she was out of the room, and the shrieking grew much quieter.
It seemed the poison had quite an effect on the monster.
Ye Chu stepped through the doorway and was about to turn around to ask Xiao Xiao, "Are you okay?" when he suddenly froze. In the mirror, he saw Xiao Xiao raising her hand high behind his back, a knife clutched in her grip.
Ye Chu immediately spun around and backed away. "Xiao Xiao, what are you holding?"
Xiao Xiao paused at his question and looked down at her hand. "Our broom."
Ye Chu fell silent for a few seconds, then raised his hand and slapped himself hard across the face. When he looked at Xiao Xiao again, she was indeed holding a broom.
Ye Chu: ...Why does this game have illusion realms too?! Fine, it's not an illusion realm. It's just a hallucination at most.
Xiao Xiao fell silent as well. Seeing her dazed expression, Ye Chu asked, "What's wrong?"
Xiao Xiao raised her hand and slapped herself too. Afterward, she looked at Ye Chu, raised her hand, and gave herself another slap.
At last, clarity returned to Xiao Xiao's eyes. "Nothing. I just saw you slap your own head off, then step on it and crush it."
Ye Chu: ...Are we supposed to clear this game just by slapping ourselves?
Ye Chu turned around and saw the wolf-headed man and the fox-headed man again. Their eyes glowed an eerie red as they stared straight at him, as though they were looking at a dead man.
Ye Chu picked up the broom handle. If they dared come any closer, he would swing it at them.
The wolf-headed man and the fox-headed man seemed to be approaching the two of them, but both stopped when they saw Ye Chu pick up the broom handle.
Ye Chu had a strange feeling that he knew these two things in front of him-and knew them well. Despite his terrible luck, he trusted his instincts. He tossed the broom handle to the floor and asked uncertainly, "Pei Yanchuan, Su Fengzi, is that you?"
"Xiao Pei, what's the rabbit-headed man saying?" Su Fengzi asked in confusion.
After driving the monster into a breakdown, the two had seized the chance to slip out of the room. The moment they emerged, they saw two familiar rabbit-headed figures. They were about to approach Ye Chu and greet him, only for the rabbit-headed man to pick up his broom handle again.
Su Fengzi stopped in his tracks. A person couldn't stumble in the same spot three times.
They saw the taller rabbit-headed figure open his mouth, revealing sharp teeth, and make a series of unintelligible squeaking noises.
Pei Yanchuan shook his head, picked up the rag stained with red blood, and carefully wrote on the white tiles: "Ye?"
The rabbit-headed man seemed to freeze at the sight of the word, then nodded so vigorously that his head nearly fell off.
With that, they had confirmed each other's identities.
But Pei Yanchuan had even more questions now. Why had the monster set up two teaching buildings? Why separate the male and female students? Why did the others look like monsters inside the Laboratory Building?
A bell suddenly rang outside the window, chiming ten times. Pei Yanchuan remembered Little Zhang saying that they had to return to the dormitory by ten past ten, or they would be marked as late.
With no time to exchange any useful information, Pei Yanchuan and Su Fengzi left the Laboratory Building and ran toward the boys' dormitory. Meanwhile, Xiao Xiao grabbed the hem of Ye Chu's shirt and sprinted off with him. "We have to get back to the dormitory before ten past, or the dorm matron won't let us off!"
As he ran, Ye Chu silently repeated, Amitabha, Amitabha. Don't look at anything improper, don't look at anything improper. In all his twenty-one years, this was his first time entering a girls' dormitory!
The Laboratory Building wasn't far from the girls' dormitory. When they ran back to their room, they still had five minutes until lights-out.
Ye Chu glanced around the room. There were four loft beds with desks underneath, but only the two of them were there. "Where are the others? Aren't they back yet?"
Xiao Xiao had run a little too hard and was now sitting in a chair, struggling to catch her breath. At Ye Chu's question, she waved a hand. "No, only two people can live in each room."
Ye Chu was puzzled. There were clearly four beds. He was about to ask something else when Xiao Xiao picked up a booklet from the desk and shoved it into his hands. Several large words stood out on its cover:
[Dormitory Residency Regulations]
Before you continue